Solid Day for Team SLR at VIR

Barry Boes Tops in Pro-Am for Seventh Time, 14-Year-Old Tristan McKee Fourth in TA2 Debut, Fellow Teenager Julian DaCosta Eighth, Abrupt End for Thomas Ellis

Overview

Date: Oct. 5, 2024

Event: VIR SpeedTour (Round 11 of 12)

Series: Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli

Division: Cube 3 Architecture TA2 Series

Location: Virginia International Raceway in Alton

Layout: 3.27-mile, 17-turn road course

Format: 31 laps or 75 minutes

Weather: Sunny, upper-70s

TA2 Winner: Thomas Annunziata of Nitro Motorsports

TeamSLR:

* Tristan McKee – Started 6^th, Finished 4^th (Running, completed 31/31 laps)

* Julian DaCosta – Started 12^th, Finished 8^th (Running, completed 31/31 laps)

* Barry Boes – Started 13^th, Finished 11^th (Running, completed 31/31 laps)

* Thomas Ellis – Started 15^th, Finished 27^th (Accident, completed 10/31 laps)

Noteworthy:

* Boes scored his seventh Pro-Am Challenge-class victory in 11 races this season and fifth in the last six races. He entered the weekend with a 129-point lead in the championship within a championship. If he arrives at the season finale at Circuit of the Americas with a lead of 110 points or more, he will have clinched the class championship.

* This was the first career TA2 start for McKee, who became eligible to drive in the series when he turned 14 on Aug. 3.

* The 16-year-old DaCosta’s eighth-place finish was his third top-10 in as many TA2 Series starts this season. He made his series debut with a 10th-place finish April 14 at NOLA Motorsports Park in Avondale, Louisiana, and finished eighth Aug. 31 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario.

* Other top M1 Racecars finishers included Austin Green of Peterson Motorsports, who came home sixth today.

Tristan McKee, Driver, No. 28 SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:

“It was a good day. We started off sixth and worked our way up to fourth, which was good. We had a caution and Connor Zilisch got by me, and then Rafa Matos got by me, as well. And then we were all running that way until the last part of the race. I started picking up the leaders, our car was getting pretty good there at the end and they were falling off a little bit. I got Rafa on the last lap for fourth, so that is a good first day. We had good speed, so I think we’ll just keep working on it and get better for the next one.”

Julian DaCosta, Driver No. 17 Powered by Hixon/Austin Hatcher Foundation/SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:

“The most difficult part of the weekend was we weren’t getting any track time. I think we got probably two or three (green-flag) laps each session, which makes it pretty difficult on everybody, it makes it difficult on the team. But TeamSLR did a great job and they kept the car really quick. I knew I had a few things to work on going into the race. I definitely think we improved on a lot and I know what I still need to work on going forward. But, otherwise, it was a really good race, and overall the team did a great job. I have to thank Hixon Motorsports, they definitely helped me out, they’re the whole reason I’m here. And the Austin Hatcher Foundation, I’m really proud to support them, and we’re we’re looking forward to what we can do in the future and hopefully get everybody on the podium soon.”

Barry Boes, Driver No. 27 Accio Data/SLR-M1 Racecars Ford Mustang:

“We had a had a really good start, we got a couple of positions moving forward. The car was loose on me up the esses. It was perfect in qualifying. I asked them to make no changes, so I’m not sure what happened., a new set of tires or something different, but that’s OK. So I was just loose up the esses and I kept losing time. One time, I said I’ve just got to make this work, and I tried a little bit harder, and it wasn’t going to work for me and I went for a ride and dropped to the back. Then I just had to fight my way back forward again, made it to the front of Pro-Am and was running them down maybe by a 10th (of a second) or two a lap. I was really excited, thinking I might be able to get up to them and do a little racing, but I just ran out of time. All in all a good day. We’re looking good in the Pro-Am championship.”

Thomas Ellis, Driver, No. 8 SLR-M1 Racecars Chevrolet Camaro:

“It was a tough weekend, and I’m not happy about getting taken out by an amateur driver. That’s all I can really say. I feel like we had something at the beginning of the race. We worked on the car all weekend to find rear-end grip and we finally had a package that seemed like was going to work. In the race, we had good pace, but unfortunately got dumped. Better luck next time, I guess.”

Next Up

TeamSLR, proud to be racing on behalf of partners Franklin Road Apparel and Cube 3 Architecture, heads to Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas for the 2024 season finale Nov. 1-3. The COTA SpeedTour, round 12 of the 12-race campaign, kicks off with a pair of TA2 test sessions on Friday, Nov. 1, at 11 a.m. and 5:45 p.m. CDT. Official TA2 practice is set for 11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, followed by qualifying at 5:35 p.m. Start time Sunday, Nov. 3, for the 30-lap, 75-minute TA2 race around the 3.4-mile, 20-turn road course is 10:35 a.m. with live television provided by series partner MAVTV, augmented by a live video stream on the Trans Am channel on YouTube.

-TeamSLR-